Ceramic or plastic noval socket

[karsten21]

Dear folks,

just a simple question: Are there any drawbacks to use cheep China-made ceramic noval sockets instead Belton style sockets for PCB mount?

As anode Voltage I use not more than 350V and always small signal tubes like ECC83 or 12AX7...

Thanks a lot for a short hint 🙂

Best regards
Karsten

 

[jean michel]

hello ,

for ECC 83 / 12 AX 7 or 6N2P ( or other dual triode ) , so not problem , not use for penthode ( EL 84 / 86 or ECL 82 / 86 or 805 ) so risk deadly destroy to high voltage ...

 

[JonSnell Electronic]

Ceramics are ceramics, they are good at high voltage and physical strength. I have never had to change a ceramic valve base due to arcing. I have changed a few plastic ones due to arc damage. The only reason the plastic bases fail is when there is no output transformer load and peaks of a few kV can occur!

 

[karsten21]

Hello Jean,

Did you mean, the plasic socket should not be used for pentode?
It the major difference of ceramic versus plastic is only the dielectric strength? For NF usage I think the possible capacitive differences are not interesting...?

Regards
Karsten

 

[jean michel]

hello ,

i use old time , socket noval in build to plastic , very very bad build so long time !

me choice is ceramic socket noval or octal , the magnoval is only ceramic .

😉

 

[JonSnell Electronic]

The plastic socket is fine for all uses. It is only when the circuit fails the ceramic comes out as better as it can be cleaned up and the pins replaced.